Philippine leader to expedite bill for self-rule in Muslim region

Philippine
President Duterte gesture as he addresses Filipino-Muslim leaders
during an Eid al-Fitr celebration at the Malacanang Presidential
Palace in Metro ManilaThomson
Reuters

By Martin Petty

MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte vowed on
Monday to fast-track new legislation for autonomy in the
country's most volatile region, advancing a protracted process to
end decades of rebellion and thwart rising Islamist militancy.

The Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) submitted to Duterte on Monday is
the culmination of a rocky 20-year peace process between the
government of the predominantly Christian Philippines and the
Muslim separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

It aims to turn predominantly Muslim parts of the southern island
of Mindanao into an autonomous region with its own executive,
legislature and fiscal powers.

"May I say to you my brothers ... I will support and hasten this
instrument as it goes to the legislature," Duterte said in a
ceremony for the handover of the bill, drawing loud applause.

"There will be no objections of the provisions of all that is
consistent with the constitution and aspirations of the Moro
people."

Passage of the bill would be a major achievement for Duterte, who
was a mayor in a Mindanao city for 22 years and has made peace
deals with separatists and Marxist rebels a priority for his
year-old government.

The bill's submission comes at a critical time for the
Philippines, as fears grow that militants allied with Islamic
State have exploited disillusionment over the failure of the
previous Congress to pass the law, and have used it to recruit
fighters and further a radical agenda.

Rebels inspired by Islamic State have occupied the commercial
heart of Marawi City, on Mindanao, through seven weeks of air
strikes and battles with government troops that have killed more
than 500 people and displaced 260,000, marking the country's
biggest security crisis in years.

DANGEROUS TIMES

"We live in very dangerous times... we watch with utter disgust
of the destruction that violent extremism has inflicted in the
city of Marawi," MILF chairman Al Haj Ebrahim Murad said.

"These misguided people have filled the vacuum created by our
failure to enact the basic law and (they) feed into the
frustration of our people."

The law, details of which were not immediately available, calls
for the creation of a self-administered territory within what the
Philippines called Bangsamoro, meaning "Moro nation", referring
to the southern Muslims that Spanish colonialists called "Moros".

The bill, agreed by a panel of representatives from government,
the MILF and religious groups, prescribes an elected legislative
assembly, a chief minister, a cabinet, with an agreement to share
natural resource revenues, stacked largely in favor of the new
Bangsamoro government.

In a recent interview with Reuters in Cotabato City, Mohagher
Iqbal, the MILF's top peace negotiator, said the hope was for
Congress to pass the law and a transition period to start in
2019, with elections in 2022 for an 80-seat assembly.

Iqbal said he feared the Marawi siege could complicate the
passage of the law if there was a perception that the MILF and
the radical Maute group fighting in Marawi were associated with
each other because both hail from the same region.